Born in Leningrad. In 1968, he completed his studies at the Choir College
attached to Leningrad's Academic Glinka Capella. He is a graduate of two
faculties of the Leningrad Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatoire: the faculty of
choral conducting (1973) and the faculty of opera and symphony conducting
(1978).

From 1976-86, he was conductor of the Glinka Academic Capella.
From 1988-2000, he was chief chorus master and conductor at the Leningrad Kirov
Theatre of Opera and Ballet (from 1992 - the Maryinsky). With this Theatre's
chorus he rehearsed over 70 works in the opera, cantata-oratorio and symphony
genres.

For a long time, he was artistic director and conductor of the
Saint-Petersburg-Mozarteum, a group combining a Chamber Orchestra,
Chamber Chorus, musicians and vocalists.

Since 1996, he has been
assistant professor at the Saint-Petersburg Conservatoire.

He has twice
won Saint-Petersburg's most prestigious theatre prize the Zolotoy Sofit
(1999, 2003).

With the Maryinsky Theatre Company (conductor Valery
Gergiev), he has done more than 20 recordings of Russian and foreign operas on
the Phillips label. He has given performances with the Maryinsky Theatre Chorus
in New York, Lisbon, Baden-Baden, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Omaha.

In April
2003, he took up the position of chief chorus master of the Bolshoi
Theatre.At the Bolshoi Theatre, he worked with the chorus on new productions
of the following operas: Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden,
Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Glinka's Ruslan and
Lyudmila, Verdi's Macbeth, Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa,
Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel, Shostakovich's The Lady Macbeth of the
Mtsensk, Falstaff, Leonid Desyatnikov's The Children of Rosenthal
(world premiere), Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Mozart's Die
Zauberfloete, Prokofiev's War and Peace, Tchaikovsky's
Eugene Onegin, Mussorgsky's Boris
Godunov, Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Bizet's
Carmen, Rimsky-Korsakov's The Legend of the Invisible City of
Kitezh and of the Maiden Fevronia, Berg's Wozzeck, Strauss'
Die Fledermaus.

In 2005, the Bolshoi Theatre Chorus was awarded
the special jury prize of the National Theatre Golden Mask award for
the premieres of the Theatre's228th season - Macbeth and
The Flying Dutchman.

In 2004, Valery Borisov made his conducting
debut at the Bolshoi Theatre: the work chosen was the opera Eugene
Onegin.